Cuomo vs. Clinton in 2016?

“Welcome to my announcement to run for president of Malta,” Hillary Clinton joked Wednesday night as she took the stage at Lincoln Center, where she was one of 100 luminaries honored by Time magazine.

Surveying the crowd, the globe-trotting secretary of state added: “I was delighted to see our wonderful governor Andrew Cuomo is on the Time 100 list, along with others, like Marco Rubio, and … the two of them and I have ended up on some other lists this past couple of months.”

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Clinton had barely finished the sentence before the crowd laughed knowingly. Yet with that coy nod to two other people who are frequently mentioned as 2016 presidential contenders, Clinton fanned the speculation about whether she’s planning to make a second-act presidential run in four years.

The not-so-idle chatter has real-world impact in New York political circles, raising the tantalizing possibility of a civil war among the state’s two biggest political titans in 2016. If Clinton does decide to run, will Cuomo — driven, politically popular and keenly aware of strong political moments — also barrel ahead? Or will Clinton, with her national network of donors and base of support, clear the field?

“I think he’ll think twice about going against her,” predicted Bill Lynch, a former deputy mayor under New York’s first black mayor, David Dinkins, and a longtime ally of the Clintons. “He’s still a young man and could wait around awhile. … I think that she is very popular around the country right now. And I think all this stuff with women (and legislative battles related to abortion and other issues), it would up her popularity.”

If Clinton were to run, she would have the edge with the New York elite who have comprised the donor base for both Clinton and Cuomo, Lynch insisted — predicting the 2008 contender and former first lady would be able to handily lock up most of the fundraising support.

“Who knows how to raise money better than the Clintons?” Lynch said.

Few do — but Cuomo is an agile fundraiser, and he’s been amassing a donor base for years now — many of whom might be less than inclined to anger a sitting governor.

It’s far from clear that the former first lady, who had a huge head start in 2008 before losing a bitter battle to then-Sen. Barack Obama, is interested in running in 2016. But if she begins thinking about it, it would immediately raise alarms in Cuomo-land.

“That’s the $64 billion question,” said John Catsimatidis, a major New York bundler who was a huge Clinton backer in 2008 (he now supports Mitt Romney) and has also supported Cuomo as governor, referring to a 2016 Clinton bid. “I don’t know and I don’t think anyone does.”